Farm News Crop Forecast
U-Pick Recipes Nuts and Bolts
Greetings!
Full summer is here! Tomatoes and sunflowers have been wonderful, and this week we have bell peppers and some hot peppers, with melons right on their heels. We might even have watermelons in Tuesday’s share — they are ripening quickly so we might have enough to go around starting on Tuesday.
The picture above is our winter squash field — the plants are so tall and healthy this year! Please admire it and cheer it on — it’s across the street, on the south side of 320th St between our driveway and Hwy 3. It’s always hard to know until we harvest in early September, but it sure seems to be loaded with fruits.
Same with the watermelons and cantalopes — the plants are so vigorous and healthy, it’s hard to see the fruits hiding in there, but so far they look abundant. (We almost killed the second planting of cantalopes by putting them out into unexpectedly chilly June nights — we babied them after that and even they look healthy and amazing.) As the fruits ripen though the vines pull back a little, or the fruits just get taller than the vines. We’ve been walking the edges to test a few and get a sense of their ripeness and progress. Tuesday we’ll take the first full walk through, and harvest, tip-toeing though the vines and tapping them, checking the ground spot and their tendrils — we love the game of toss-and-catch that melon harvest is.
Since we have plenty of irrigation now, and we made it through so far without any h-il flying from the sky, the biggest negative effect of those heat waves is likely to be poor pollination. With that kind of extended heat we expect to see it in peppers, and sometimes in tomatoes, melons and squash. Somehow it so far looks like those last three crops made it through with excellent amounts of fruit formed. The peppers had a bacterial disease before the heat waves though, which had already reduced the number of flowers per plant. It’s the same disease we had last year in peppers — but so far we think we’ll have more peppers than 2025, just not as many as we would in most years. In the share you probably won’t even notice the difference in pepper amounts ; it mainly affects our wholesale sales.
And then there’s weeds! All this sun makes it easier to catch up with them. We had 1.5″ of rain last week, fortunately avoiding the 3-7″ that some places saw. When it’s that wet, new weeds germinate much too “well”, so at least we’re mostly now working against bigger weeds that survived our attempts earlier in July.
And we’ve got plenty of food to eat!
Crop Forecast
Summer fruits!
Tomatoes are rolling in and bigger than ever for early ones. Should be 8 per share this week, mostly large ones. And look for an email this week about extra tomato boxes — for sauce, extra eating, canning, freezing etc. We expect to have them available next week or the week after.
Peppers! Mostly green bells right now, with a few reds or partial reds. Many more to come, including orange and red bells, and red Carmens. Green bells aren’t as exciting but just frying with onions for fajitas to add to tacos etc is so darn good.
Hot Peppers — we were very low on these in 2025 due to that disease, but should have closer to a normal amount this year. We had to toss a couple flats of plants that were sick (before even planting in the field) but the amount of fruit on the remaining plants looks good. Most of the sick plants we had to toss were anaheims, so we’ll have less of them.
And Garlic is back! As usual its a part of the share for 6 weeks, and extra is for sale in the barn for $1.25 per head (no need to pre-order extra garlic).
We continue to have : Sweet Onions!, eggplants, broccoli, summer squash and zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, beets, cabbage, fennel; plus now baby leeks instead of scallions. Plus leaf lettuce, salad greens, garlic scapes, kale, and chard.
This will be the last broccoli for a few weeks, since we messed up the timing of the boc Choi / broccolini experiment that was supposed to take the place of the trouble-prone August harvest.
Lettuce in late July and August is often tricky since it doesn’t love the heat and long days. It’s a little more bitter than usual but should mellow as the temps do.
We think we’ll have watermelons this week! They are barely ripening in time for Tuesday — we won’t know til Tuesday am if there’s enough to go around. If so, it’ll be mostly red ones this week; though if some more yellows do ripen they are ridiculously good. Cantaloupes will start coming in next week. We aim for a 4-5 week melon season, usually 1 per share, with a week or two of having 2 melons per share. This year it looks like we’ll be on the high end of that goal.
What’s for U-Pick?
Beans , Beans, Beans.
Basil, Dill, Cilantro (near solar panels) — all unlimited, with more plantings coming thru fall.
Other Herbs (near beans) — Nasturtium (edible flowers with a kick), Thai Basil, sage, curly parsley, flat parsley, oregano, thyme, anise hyssop — are all unlimited too.
Flowers — On both sides of the driveway. Ideally for sunflowers you can bring a heavy clippers, we don’t lend out anything bigger than kiddie scissors since the return rate is pretty low. A lot of folks just keep a pair of scissors and or pruning shears in their car. That way it’s easy to stop by and score some points (with someone else or with yourself) by bringing home a quick bouquet whenever you drive by!
Cherry tomatoes — more available than last week. Lots to come, be prepared to mange mange.
This spot in the newsletter will keep you informed, and always check the U-pick board when you’re here to see what’s available and picking amounts.
Nuts and Bolts
Bulk Produce for You — TOMATO BOXES STARTING next week or week after, look for separate email this week
Check here each newsletter for what we have available for extra purchase.
To place a bulk order, simply email us at least 2 days ahead of the day you’d like to pick it up. Orders can be picked up at the farm during our regular pickup hours, but it doesn’t have to be your share pickup day. Usually we can make an order on the spot, too.
This week’s bulk selection is : Carrots, Beets, Sweet Onions, Cukes, zukes and squash for $1.50 / lb, Lettuce Mix for $6 / lb. Kale and chard for $3 / lb, cabbage for $1/lb, Tomatoes and bell peppers $2/lb.
Share Pickup Hours TUESDAY and THURSDAY 1:30-6:30 pm.
Change Pick-Up Day Form — Click here. Please fill out this form instead of emailing us. Thanks!
Where is the farm? 4151 320th Street West, Northfield.
Please Drive Carefully —Children are everywhere.
If You Send Someone Else to Pick Up Your Share — Please forward them the basic pickup video in this link , which was also sent in an email earlier in June. Then just tell them to introduce themselves to us in the barn, just so we know and we can show them around.
We love having all of you come to the farm! Thank you for making it such a great place to be!
Your farmers,
Erin and Ben, with Allia, Alex, Camille, River, Soli, Elliott, Sahara, Sai Dang and crew
RECIPES
Easy Summer Pasta
1 ¾ cups cherry tomatoes, halved
2 medium zucchinis
1 eggplant, cut into ¾-inch cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil or canola oil
2 teaspoons mixed dried herbs (such as Herbes de Provence)
1 pinch salt, plus more to taste
2 ¾ ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into medium strips
1 ½ cups penne pasta (or 3 cups cooked penne)
3 tablespoons crème fraiche or ricotta cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Reserve about ½ cup of the tomatoes for garnishing.
On a rimmed baking sheet, arrange the remaining tomatoes.
Cut the zucchinis in half lengthwise, then cut into half-moons about ¾-inch thick.
Add to the baking sheet with the tomatoes, along with the eggplant, oil, herbs, and a big pinch of salt.
Toss to combine and roast, tossing halfway through, for about 1 hour, until the vegetables are nicely caramelized.
After 45 minutes, scatter the mozzarella over the top of the vegetables and return to the oven for the final 15 minutes so the cheese melts.
Meanwhile, cook pasta to al dente (this will generally be the shorter cooking time on the package directions).
Drain, reserving ½ cup of the pasta water, and return the pasta to the saucepan.
To the saucepan with the pasta, add the vegetables and cheese along with the crème fraiche and a splash of reserved pasta water.
Season with salt and pepper to taste and toss to combine.
Scatter the reserved tomatoes over the pasta.
Rolled Stuffed Salmon
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 large leeks (white and pale-green parts only) chopped and washed well (3 ¼ cups) — you could use sweet onions too!
1 bunch Swiss chard, tough stems trimmed, leaves chopped (6 cups)
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 ¼ pounds salmon fillet, skin removed
¼ cup packed dill sprigs, plus 6 more sprigs for tops
Extra-virgin olive oil
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Melt butter in a large skillet over high.
Add leeks; cook, stirring, until just golden, about 4 minutes.
Add chard; season with salt and pepper.
Cook, tossing, until wilted, about 3 minutes. Let cool.
In a small bowl, whisk together yogurt, lemon juice, mustards, garlic, and soy sauce.
Butterfly salmon by cutting horizontally through middle along one long side, leaving other side intact. Open flat, like a book. Flip salmon, skinned-side up; season with salt and pepper.
Spread top with ¼ cup yogurt mixture.
Top with dill sprigs, then chard mixture.
With a long side facing you, roll up salmon into a tight log. Secure with 6 pieces of kitchen twine, starting about 1 ¼ inches from end and spacing evenly.
Cut salmon into 6 equal pieces, slicing between twine.
Tuck a dill sprig under twine on each roll.
Place rolls in a baking dish and drizzle with oil, rubbing to coat.
Season with salt and pepper.
Roast until salmon is opaque on outside but still pink inside, about 15 minutes.
Serve, with remaining yogurt mixture alongside.
Open Hands Farm 